Apple CEO Tim Cook tells LGBT youth: ‘You are a gift to the world’

Apple CEO Tim Cook has told LGBT people that they are “a gift to the world” during a speech in which he urged queer children not to give in to despair.

“I stand before you tonight as an uncle, a sports nut, a CEO, a lover of the beautiful Utah outdoors, and a proud gay American,” Cook told the cheering crowd at the Rice-Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City.

“I’ve come to deliver a simple message that I want every LGBT person to hear and to believe: You are a gift to the world, a unique and special gift, just the way you are. Your life matters.

“To you, I say: find your truth. Speak your truth. Live your truth,” added Cook. 

“Let me tell you, normal might just be the worst word ever created,” Cook told the audience, to loud applause.

“We’re not all supposed to be the same, feel the same or think the same, and there is nothing wrong with you.

“Now, I know that life can be dark and heavy, and sometimes it might seem unreasonable and unbearable. But just as night turns to day, know that darkness is always followed by light,” he continued.

“You will feel more comfortable in your own skin, attitudes will change, life will get better, and you?

“You will thrive.”